This is the Dane Moore MBA podcast brought to you by Blue Hour Pods.

This episode is going to be part one of a three-part season preview. The three parts are

going to be looking at the guards first, which we'll do today. The Wings will be part two.

That'll publish on Sunday. And the part three will be the Biggs and that will publish on Monday

morning. I've roped in Britt Robson to do this activity with me. Britt, normally this is the part of the show where I say,

Britt Robson of the Athletic.

That's no longer the case.

Maybe for our listeners and your readers who are not on Twitter,

you can just want to explain where your writing is going to be.

Sure.

I can't remember. Time flies.

Is it last week or two weeks ago?

Anyway, last week.

Recently, maybe last week.

I was doing some story brainstorming with John Krasnski, who remains ever optimistic that the athletic

will emerge from its one step forward, two steps back approach to its non-staff writers.

And so I put together two lengthy pitches because since the pandemic, my story ideas need to be needed to be approved by somebody not directly associated with me, somebody, some foreign person higher up on the chain.

And so he said, hey, some foreign person higher up on the chain.

And so he said, hey, can I call you this guy or who was my editor at the time.

And so I said, sure, and I gave him a time.

He called me up and said, hey, the athletic has made the decision to freeze all our freelance money for the rest of the year,

which is a rough thing to have happened like two weeks before the start of the season.

...